


Lucky Charm

by redleather



Category: RocknRolla (2008)
Genre: Archy is a little in love with Johnny if you squint and look sideways, Bertie isn't a bad sort really, Bob does things to Bertie for the sake of One Two, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Handsome Bob really loves One Two and would do literally anything for him, Implied Relationships, Lenny Cole was an abusive asshole and we're all well rid of him, M/M, Mumbles is the best, Off-screen Character Death, One Two needs to pull his head out of his arse, Post RocknRolla, Stella drew the short straw, Uri is an asshole, no really Mumbles is the best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 20:09:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redleather/pseuds/redleather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mumbles reflected later, when every side of the story had been laid out, that all their fortunes had turned, for good or bad, on the back of one really ugly painting. For love of that painting, an empire had toppled, the grass that had sent them all down had been uprooted and people had been beaten up, kidnapped, knee-capped and killed</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lucky Charm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elle_dritch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elle_dritch/gifts).



> Thanks to lanyon, my amazing beta, who gives me all my best ideas! xxx

Mumbles reflected later, when every side of the story had been laid out, that all their fortunes had turned, for good or bad, on the back of one really ugly painting. For love of that painting, an empire had toppled, the grass that had sent them all down had been uprooted and people had been beaten up, kidnapped, knee-capped and killed.

When Johnny had tiptoed home to Lenny’s to steal some cash, it had spoken to him from the wall, hanging there innocuously above Lenny’s desk. He wasn’t to know it was Uri’s lucky painting; he just thought Lenny had made another acquisition and, because the man was a complete philistine, he couldn’t be trusted to truly appreciate the beauty that Johnny saw within. So, Johnny had been compelled to lift it and, in doing so, he set in motion events that would one day make him King.

When the junkies had seen it, they only saw something that wasn’t nailed down and, therefore, it was there to be pilfered. They saw their next score. They gave it about as much care as any cheap merchandise off the back of a truck but it really must have been a lucky painting because, of all places they could have brought it, they took it to the Speeler. The lucky painting didn’t bring you luck but it carried its own kind of luck with it

When One Two had seen it, he had thought of Stella and not because of anything particular in the subject matter. It was because it was _art_ and she liked art and it was old and maybe she’d be impressed or touched and she’d let him touch her again. Mumbles had looked down his nose at it. To him, it was a dull and unimpressive waste of paint and the frame was heavy; a dark wood preventing it from looking anything other than hideous, no matter whether you hung it in the Tate Modern or in your living room.

When Stella had seen it, she hadn’t been particularly impressed either but she liked One Two, in spite of herself, and she thought that maybe the rough, ugly frame might grow on her like the big, rough Scotsman had.

When Uri had seen the painting, he had been hoping that Victor was mistaken in his suspicion of the beautiful accountant. When he’d asked her about it, she’d claimed it as her own and all of his affection for her evaporated in that moment. She wasn’t to know that she was about to learn that lucky paintings are lucky only for some.

She had sensed a change in the air, the moment she’d told him. Uri made a call on his phone, said something low and quiet in Russian and turned to her with a smile that had all the warmth and amiability of a shark. Moments later, Victor arrived in the door, leather gloved and purposeful. She’d said something wrong, she’d said something terribly wrong and she didn’t know what it was.

“I’m getting a drink - do you want one?” she asked. She took an incredibly deep pull on her cigarette and sailed right past the drinks cabinet to the kitchen and the silent alarm.

“No, thank you,” said Uri. She knew. He knew she knew. He nodded to Victor, who followed her to the kitchen, and then he turned and left the house to go and wait in the car until the job was done. Sirens sounded in the distance. He thought that Victor was taking longer than usual. The sirens sounded louder and he noticed that a light was flashing on the outside of the house.

The alarm! The bitch had tripped the alarm! He was on the point of getting out of the car, when Victor came stumbling out the front door and down the steps. He had a cut above his eye that was pouring blood down his face and over gouges and claw marks on his cheeks. Some looked quite deep; Victor would have scars. She’d fought. The sirens were getting loud. Victor threw himself into the car.

“The painting! My painting! Why didn’t you get it?” shouted Uri from the back seat.

“The police... I could go back and get it?”

“Too late! GO. Go go. Go now!” Uri snarled.

Victor turned the keys in the engine and pulled away at speed, just as the source of the approaching sirens rounded the corner behind them. Uri and Victor were out of the country within the hour and Uri got neither his planning permission, nor his missing fourteen million, nor did he ever see his lucky painting ever again.

~*~

As is the way of these things, when you put word out on the street and you put a little cash behind it, you will eventually hear back and thus Archy did eventually learn what happened to the painting. He wouldn’t have cared a jot about it anymore if it wasn’t for Johnny’s sake. If it hadn’t been for the little boy he used to know, the one who grew up to have junkie, magpie fingers, Archy would never have known that Lenny Cole had been the one who sold him down the river to the tune of four years.

Johnny was in hospital now (he had been shot after all) and then Johnny was going to rehab, and Johnny was saying that with the certainty he used to reserve for defying Lenny. Archy would get him the painting, maybe as a thank you and maybe as an apology to Johnny for all those years of thinking that Lenny Cole wasn’t so wrong to hit him with a belt. It had stung him to listen to Johnny calling him Uncle Archy in that accusatory tone, as much as his slap to Johnny’s face must have hurt. Poor kid, no wonder he ended up a junkie. He hadn’t a hope with a step father like Lenny. At least they all knew now what a treacherous shit he was and that, more than anything else, was going to help Johnny find some peace.

So, to the matter of the painting. Trouble was, it was still in Stella and Bertie’s house. Well, just Bertie’s house now. Archy turned up to the wake, which was in full swing when he arrived. Cookie, who he could see milling about with a glass of champagne, had provided the ‘refreshments’. It seemed like posh rich folks couldn’t manage to express an emotion unless it was chemically induced. Bertie was putting on a show of crying uncontrollably but, then again, he had actually liked Stella. Maybe it wasn’t entirely a show. The painting was on display just where Stella had left it. Archy wondered how best to bring up the subject of purchasing it with the blubbering Bertie, who was surrounded by people listening to him tell the story of how the police told him about Stella for something like the hundredth time.

One Two was sitting on an overstuffed, upholstered chair trying and failing to manfully hold in the tears. Archy wondered what he was doing there and then he remembered that One Two had had a little thing for the dearly departed Stella. Archy was about to go have a word when, out of nowhere, Mumbles and Handsome Bob descended on him.

“Can I help you, Arch?” asked Mumbles softly. He stood shoulder to shoulder with Bob. They formed an impenetrable wall that Archy wasn’t going to have any luck getting past.

“I wanted to have a word with One Two.”

“You can have a word with me,” said Mumbles and he stood solid in a black suit. One Two barely registered his presence.

“Alright boys, settle down. I just wanted to have a word about buying that painting off his lordship here. Figured One Two might have an in,” said Archy, indicating Bertie and the frumpy masterpiece.

Mumbles was unimpressed by Archy’s overture. Bob folded his arms and looked fit to kill.

“Now is really not the time, Archy,” threatened Mumbles.

Unfortunately, One Two had heard all of this.

“Oh God,” he moaned and buried his face in his hands, pretending he wasn’t sobbing. Mumbles knew he was thinking ‘If only I hadn’t given her the painting’. As if he could have known. As if anyone could have known.

Normally, this kind of negotiation wouldn’t have crossed Mumbles’ mind as being at all appropriate for the occasion but the damn painting was sitting there looking at them all and Mumbles wanted it gone about as badly as Archy seemed to want to take it.

“Maybe later, yeah,” said Mumbles “I’ll see what I can do.”

Bob’s eyes gave an anguished flick in One Two’s direction and then came back to Archy. His jaw clenched.

“I’ll get it,” he said. Mumbles and Archy looked at him in surprise.

“Just give me half an hour and I’ll get it.”

Bob took off across the room, making a beeline for Bertie. Within ten minutes, he’d sequestered him into a corner, with a glass of something powerfully alcoholic and an arm around his waist. He was whispering in Bertie’s ear, who had stopped crying and who looked far more pleased with himself than any man should at his wife’s wake, beard or no.

Mumbles and Archy waited. Archy watched Handsome Bob, and Mumbles watched Archy. One Two continued to sit in the chair looking destitute.

Bob manoeuvred Bertie up the stairs. They all waited some more in silence. Cookie passed by with a tray of canapés at one point and so did a blonde woman who was sniffing too much and a man who had a whole bottle of Remy Martin.

“Food’s not bad at this shindig, yeah?” he weaved and grinned, attempting charming but achieving shit-eating. Neither Mumbles nor Archy responded.

“Salmon mousse thingy?” asked Cookie, offering the tray.

Archy and Mumbles shook their heads.

He thought about saying ‘cheer up!’ to One Two but Mumbles was staring at him like he meant business. Cookie moved on with his two new friends in tow.

As if by magic, on the stroke of half an hour, Bob came back down the stairs straightening the front of his shirt with a face on him like thunder. Bertie didn’t follow. Bob headed directly for the painting, lifted it off its stand and shoved it unceremoniously at Archy.

“It’s yours. No charge. I suggest you leave.”

There were many things that Archy wanted to say to that. Old Archy, Lenny’s Archy would have had words to say about just how Bob managed that little feat; he would have also had words about Bob’s cheek. Today, however, he’d got what he’d come for, with a minimum of fuss and no expense. He smiled instead.

“Nice doing business with you boys. My condolences,” he added in One Two’s direction.

Turning on his heel, he left, exceedingly pleased with himself. Uncle Archy would have an early Christmas present for Johnny when he got out of rehab. Turbo held the car door open for him and popped the painting in the boot while Archy poured himself a large brandy.

Back inside at the wake, Bertie had finally stumbled back down the stairs. His shirt wasn’t properly tucked back into his trousers, his tie was missing, his hair was a mess and was eyeing up Bob with a drunken, lascivious smile. It was completely impossible to miss.

“What the hell did you do Bob?” asked One Two from the chair, sounding slightly disgusted.  
Bob looked upset.

“What do you think?” he said, and walked away to grab another glass. Bertie started hovering dangerously. Mumbles slapped One Two in the back of the head.

“Something for you, you knob,” answered Mumbles. “Apologise to your boy.”

One Two looked pained, realising he’d stuck his foot in it, again.

“Bob! Bob. I’m sorry Bob. I’m an arsehole, sorry.”

He jogged over to Bob and put a hand on his shoulder.

“S’alright,” said Bob, even though it wasn’t. One Two’s presence was too intimidating for Bertie, who looked disappointed he couldn’t get near Bob for more canoodling. One Two steered them both back to Mumbles and away from the toffee-nosed lech.

“I’m sorry Bob, you were... you were being nice.”

“Yes, I was. Are you going to make it up to me?”

He grinned a little evilly. Mumbles looked like he thought this was hilarious. One Two looked ashen.

“I said I was sorry. You’re not going to make me go dancing again, are you?” he whispered, panicked.

Bob just smiled.

“Oh God!”

**Author's Note:**

> Dear elle_dritch.
> 
> I really hope you like this. 
> 
> I know you said you'd rather not have major character death, but Stella's death is heavily implied in the movie. So I hope this doesn't constitute major character death. I'd love to have more Handsome Bob/One Two, but I just love watching One Two have chronic foot-in-mouth disease and Handsome Bob loving him nonetheless. And Mumbles being the only one with a clue.
> 
> Happy Yuletide!  
> xxx


End file.
